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Job Seekers Are Using AI to Fight AI
Job-seeking AI might help humans win the battle, but it may cost us the war.
Canva Ai
By
JOE PROCOPIO
18 October 2024
less than 3 min read
“I’m serious. I lined up three job interviews in two days.”
What?!?
I mean, no offense.
That’s what “Sam” told me last week to finally get me to meet him at a Starbucks and show me the AI app he had been using to scrape LinkedIn and apply for tech jobs while he worked on various side projects on his second laptop.
Sam is not an AI developer. He’s not even super technical. All he did was download an app he read about in a forum, an app that uses AI on behalf of the job seeker to battle the AI being used on behalf of the company’s applicant tracking system — to even the odds with … volume and regurgitation, I guess.
This shouldn’t be shocking to me. Over the past couple of weeks alone, I’ve written thousands of words on the posting of fake jobs, the prospect of AI using AI, and the scourge of automated content screening — all of this congealing to make a mess of the average everyday job search.
I don’t know. I knew this kind of software was out there. I just didn’t think it worked.
Let me assure you. It “works” exactly as I’d feared.
Throwing Gasoline on a Dumpster Fire
I also need to reassure you, especially if you didn’t click on any of those links above (but if you did, you should join my email list), I’ve become somewhat of a Robin Hood for the tech job seeker. In spirit only. I’m not wearing tights and I’m not handing out money. I’m also not stealing from the rich. Much.
In other words, I’ve got no ties to “big HR.” And I’ve also got over a decade of experience with generative AI.
My first take on Sam’s story was the same as when anyone sees David chuck a stone at Goliath and connect. Nice shot. That was immediately replaced by fear, with my inner old man kicking in to remind me that I, too, may need a job someday, and while I can play this game, I’d rather stab myself in the brain than tweak my own job-hunting algos.
And then dread swooped in and that’s where I’m mired right now, as I contemplate the further devolution of a tech industry that I once thought was kind of all right.